He looks like John Hurt.
He now is as funny as a post-SNL Chevy Chase.
He is a Republican Party Reptile who fell asleep on a rock while bragging about how edgy he was in 1987.
He just endorsed Hillary Clinton for president but made a few jokes about her to preserve his cred among the seventeen people who still remember him.
He has never been sincere about a damn thing.
He probably thinks this post is about him.
This post is about people who coast.
This post is about people who stubbornly refuse to find a center. Or rather, it's about people who refuse to even look.
What a waste.
(Read more at Five Feet of Fury by Kathy Shaidle)
P.J. O'Rourke... the Bear seems to have fond memories from the '80s. The Bear supposes it was a lot easier to be on the right side back then. No denying he was a wordsmith in his day. Wasn't he in American Spectator? But, Hillary? Oh dear. It used to be just progressives calculated their every move to buff their "all the right people" cred. Now the habit has infected Republicans. We saw that coming with Sarah Palin, who nearly dragged the demented McCain into the White House. Snobs. The Bear ought to run for President. He's sure the little problem about being born in Germany could be finessed. He's a dab hand at the Photoshop.
ReplyDeleteIf you get your birth certificate stamped in Hawaii, it's okay.
DeletePerhaps endorsing Hillary is the only way for P.J. to attraction attention and become relevant. Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteP.J. was a funny guy back in the day - particularly recommended are his Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and a Bachelor Home Companion.
ReplyDeleteHis schtick has aged somewhat; he's a little too identifiably Boomer. His recent stuff doesn't have quite the same sheen.
This doesn't surprise me, however, because P.J. has never been a conservative, and he's always been open about that. He's a libertarian, full on, no chaser. And Trump really represents the antithesis of libertarianism in so many ways - a real rejection of any libertarian tendencies embodied in the existing conservative establishment. The only commonality with P.J. might be Trump's general indifference to religion - but it's not enough.
This is not to say you're going to see a stampede of REASON magazine editors to Hillary - I expect they'll all be voting for Gary Johnson. Which does make me wonder why P.J. isn't.
"Which does make me wonder why P.J. isn't (voting Libertarian)".
DeleteMaybe because there is no eyebrow raising impact.
Yeah. That's a good point.
DeleteMaybe because there is no eyebrow raising impact.
DeleteYou might be on to something.
Well, I used to be a card carrying Libertarian and I still am a small "l" libertarian as far Catholic tradition will allow. I get what you're saying but I see it a bit differently.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing particularly libertarian about, say, calling resistance to Islam "bigoted." Indeed, I would say that if you really care about liberty, then that's downright contradictory.
Middle-aged O'Rourke wants to preserve his reputation as a quasi-bad boy (or former quasi-bad boy) while not offending, well, the establishment, which in the end has been good to him and which he is now obviously a member of.
So, while he did pen plenty of offensive things about, say, race and sex and other hot button issues back in the day, he wants you to know that of course he was just kidding around. You know, he was acting in the role of a "satirist." He really wants you to understand that while he is a conservative, he's not one of THOSE conservatives--Coulter, Trump, etc.
Bear's favorite was "Man first began to develop in Africa. He has not done so since." That bold whiplash and broad brush truth about the continent's seeming inability to maintain stable institutions and infrastructure is the kind of pithy, funny and memorable zinger the Bear can only dream about.
DeleteMiddle-aged O'Rourke wants to preserve his reputation as a quasi-bad boy (or former quasi-bad boy) while not offending, well, the establishment, which in the end has been good to him and which he is now obviously a member of.
DeleteThis seems like a sound assessment of where he is now. A pity, but probably predictable.
He seems to be a Boomer in whom the libertine has finally beaten out the libertarian - and right when libertine is riding unusually high, especially in cultural elite circles.
In the sociological/medical literature,a person reaching 75 years of age is considered "old old"! Therefore PJ, at age 68 is not middle-aged, but simply "old". An old fool.
ReplyDelete